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A mechanism for the increased wave-induced drift of floating marine litter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2021

R. Calvert Open the ORCID record for R. Calvert [Opens in a new window] ,
M.L. McAllister ,
C. Whittaker ,
A. Raby ,
A.G.L. Borthwick Open the ORCID record for A.G.L. Borthwick [Opens in a new window]  and
T.S. van den Bremer Open the ORCID record for T.S. van den Bremer [Opens in a new window]
R. Calvert*
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, OxfordOX1 3PJ, UK School of Engineering, The University of Edinburgh, EdinburghEH9 3FB, UK
M.L. McAllister
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, OxfordOX1 3PJ, UK
C. Whittaker
Affiliation:
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Auckland, Auckland1010, New Zealand
A. Raby
Affiliation:
School of Engineering, University of Plymouth, PlymouthPL4 8AA, UK
A.G.L. Borthwick
Affiliation:
School of Engineering, The University of Edinburgh, EdinburghEH9 3FB, UK
T.S. van den Bremer
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, OxfordOX1 3PJ, UK Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, 2628 CDDelft, The Netherlands
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

Periodic water waves generate Stokes drift as manifest from the orbits of Lagrangian particles not fully closing. Stokes drift can contribute to the transport of floating marine litter, including plastic. Previously, marine litter objects have been considered to be perfect Lagrangian tracers, travelling with the Stokes drift of the waves. However, floating marine litter objects have large ranges of sizes and densities, which potentially result in different rates of transport by waves due to the non-Lagrangian behaviour of the objects. Through a combination of theory and experiments for idealised spherical objects in deep-water waves, we show that different objects are transported at different rates depending on their size and density, and that larger buoyant objects can have increased drift compared with Lagrangian tracers. We show that the mechanism for the increased drift observed in our experiments comprises the variable submergence and the corresponding dynamic buoyancy force components in a direction perpendicular to the local water surface. This leads to an amplification of the drift of these objects compared to the Stokes drift when averaged over the wave cycle. Using an expansion in wave steepness, we derive a closed-form approximation for this increased drift, which can be included in ocean-scale models of marine litter transport.

JFM classification

Waves/Free-surface Flows: Surface gravity waves Geophysical and Geological Flows: Ocean processes Geophysical and Geological Flows: Coastal engineering
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 915 , 25 May 2021 , A73
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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